Everything is not fine

Here we are, faced with this extraordinary situation of being told to stay at home, stop socialising, and our next family get together likely to be a (permitted) funeral. It’s horrible. There is so much to be said about it all and we will be talking and talking and talking to each other over the next weeks and months. But for now there is a simple message – don’t expect to feel ok. If you are afraid, ok. If you are angry, ok. If you are stunned and numb, ok. This even applies to you if you are a therapist, artist, writer, leader, influencer, vicar, mother, father………it applies. It is ok to be floored by this right now. There will be ways to recover, pick ourselves up, help others. We will be the meaning makers, the interpreters, and some of us may glimmer lights in the coming dark. But if you feel numb, scared, floored right now don’t give yourself a hard time.

I have seen a lot of posts encouraging us to see how great the change is going to be in the end. Bringing a kind of meta-perspective to it all and offering long run and overview. This is great, but at the moment it is not touching me really. Some of the content is truest wise, but a lot is sourced from desperate dissociation and defensive narcissism. Be with your own experience and don’t be fooled.

So……there will be brighter times. But right now trust that you are doing your very best in strange and terrifying (at many levels) times. Therapists, artists, spiritual friends – you don’t have to have this sorted yet. Not yet. Take heart and stay safe.